This story was republished by El Tiempo Latino. Puedes leer este artículo en español aquí.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser introduced a public safety package on Monday reneging on several police reform measures passed in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in 2020, including restrictions to use-of-force, vehicular pursuits, and body-worn camera footage requirements.

The ACT Now Act of 2023 (or Addressing Crime Trends Now Act) would also create new penalties for organized retail theft, allow the police chief to declare certain areas “drug-free zones,” and reinstate a law that makes it illegal to wear a mask for committing a crime.

The emphasis on policing — and criticisms of the reforms instituted in the council’s Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Amendment Act — follow the mayor’s posture this year regarding crime reduction, which has largely centered around enforcement and heightened criminal penalties.

“The department is dealing with some of the negative consequences of the Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Amendment Act,” Bowser said at the 4th District Police Station in Ward 4 alongside interim Police Chief Pamela Smith and Deputy Mayor of Public Safety and Justice Lindsey Appiah. “Some of the changes that were made just don’t match the daily practice of safe and effective policing.”

Bowser’s tough-on-crime proposal is the second such legislative push made by the mayor this year attempting to address crime, as the city records its highest number of homicides in a single year since the 1990s. It also comes as city officials face pressure from residents (and frequent, sometimes nonsensical or factually inaccurate chastisements from Republicans on Capitol Hill) to address the violence.

In the spring, the mayor urged the council to pass her package of laws to increase pretrial detention and stiffen gun penalties. A narrower version of that legislation, introduced by Ward 2 Councilmember Brooke Pinto, passed on an emergency basis. Local lawmakers’ attempts to solve these issues have brought city-wide frustrations to the fore as some residents call for harsher penalties and surveillance, some call for more resources poured into the systemic issues that underlie violence, and many say they want both as a part of nuanced solutions.

“You’ve heard me say repeatedly this year, we must have a policy environment that supports accountability,” Bowser said. “This perception that people have that you can commit a brazen crime and get away with it has got to stop.”

In a statement to DCist/WAMU, Ward 2 Councilmember Brooke Pinto, who chairs the judiciary committee, said she had already spoken to the mayor about making sure the bill gets a hearing this fall.

Speaking at the press conference, Ward 4 Councilmember Janeese Lewis George — who has previously pushed back against Bowser and Pinto’s tough-on-crime policies like expanding pretrial detention — did not comment on any specific provisions but tried to present a united front, alongside At-Large members Kenyan McDuffie and Anita Bonds. Lewis George’s office could not provide further comment to DCist/WAMU on Monday, as she was still reviewing the full legislation.

“It can’t be the council versus the mayor versus the judges versus the [U.S. Attorney for D.C.],” she said. “It has to be all of us, united together working together. That’s the environment we have to be in.”

Police reform rollbacks 

Several aspects of the mayor’s proposal narrow the scope of the permanent police reform measures passed by the Council in late 2022. (Many of the provisions of the package were first passed on an emergency basis in 2020, following widespread protests against police violence.) The legislation banned neck restraints, limited the use of tear gas, and required the public release of body-worn camera footage after police shootings and other use-of-force incidents. The law also included measures aimed at police accountability – including creating a database of police disciplinary files that will be eligible for open-records requests, and barring discipline from the D.C. Police Union’s collective bargaining process, making it easier for officers to be fired for misconduct.

The move has drawn fierce opposition from the D.C. Police Union, with president Gregory Pemberton testifying before Congress on more than one occasion about how the bill has allegedly hamstrung the department’s ability to effectively carry out their work. Some of these same critiques were echoed by Bowser and city officials Monday.

“We can and we should be proud of our progress, but we must never be so proud that we’re unwilling to critically evaluate our reforms and adjustments, and unintended consequences that are leading to harmful outcomes for those we serve,” said Appiah.

Part of Bowser’s legislation amends the city’s ban on neck restraints – which has been in place since the 1980s, but was further tightened by the council in recent years. Currently, they are prohibited for the purposes of controlling or restricting a person’s “movement, blood flow, or breathing,” according to legislative text. Bowser’s proposal would remove the word “movement.”

Acting Chief Pamela Smith said the language of the council’s bill was overly broad, applying to circumstances of “incidental contact” with the neck. (Smith was asked to provide a physical demonstration of the distinction the proposal is making at the press conference, but declined to do so.) She said the way the language has been interpreted by officers has created situations where they are “hesitant to go hands-on to apprehend an individual.”

“It has created circumstances where officer credibility has been called into question due to incidental contact; I want to be clear the Metropolitan Police Department has and will continue to prohibit what the public thinks of as ‘neck restraint,’” she said.

Ron Hampton, a retired MPD officer who has advocated for police accountability and served as a member of the city’s Police Reform Commission, said in his 24 years of police work, he never made incidental contact with someone’s neck, and he questioned the motivation behind the language change.

“The chokehold has been outlawed for some time, I can’t imagine why that’s being brought back,” he said in an interview Monday morning. “It has nothing to do with fundamentally dealing with the problems that we’re having in the city when it comes to crime, it’s all about protecting police officers.”

It’s unclear how this would square with Pinto’s emergency legislation or her proposed permanent legislation, which specified the definition of the felony of strangulation and increased penalties for it. Patrice Sulton, founder and executive director of the D.C. Justice Lab, said it’s an example of how, in the absence of an updated criminal code, offenses are changed in one-off legislation, while protocols for police receive careful drafting.

“When we restrict the authority of police officers, we have the mayor coming back saying ‘hey we have to do this carefully,’” she said. “But when we restrict the freedoms of people, the general public under threat of human caging, there’s no opportunity to go back and say, ‘hey, let’s make sure we got this right.’ And when people try to do that, they’re met with [accusations of] being pro-crime or being anti-victim.”

Bowser’s bill would also add language to specify what use-of-force incidents necessitate the release of body-worn camera footage to the public. While current law requires the release of body-worn camera footage within five days of a “serious use-of-force” incident, Bowser’s proposal further defines serious use-of-force. This could include a head strike with a weapon, or other assaults that would result in serious bodily injury. It would also apply to officers who discharge a firearm, with an exception for negligent discharges that do not “otherwise put members of the public at risk of injury or death.” (Conversely, Pinto’s emergency crime legislation created a new felony offense for anyone firing a gun in public.)

Another provision would allow officers to review their body-worn camera footage before writing their initial police report in certain situations, including if an injury was incurred prior to an officer’s response to the scene. Smith said this is a move supported by the U.S. Attorney for D.C. to improve officers’ ability to check footage for information like a license plate number or car color that may be useful in closing a case. (The U.S. Attorney’s for D.C., Matthew Graves, has been criticized for declining to prosecute 67% of cases – a figure he attributed, in part, to a lack of strong evidence.)

Bowser’s bill is also seeking to amend the city’s restrictions on vehicular pursuits, allowing officers to engage in a chase if they believe a person has committed a crime and poses an imminent threat to others, and if they believe the chase would not endanger people — other than the fleeing suspect. It would also repeal a provision of the council’s bill that characterizes a chase as a police use-of-force. Last year, the city saw one of its first instances in recent memory of a D.C. officer charged for an on-duty murder — although the conviction happened before the council’s vehicle pursuit restriction went into effect. Officer Terence Sutton was convicted of second-degree murder for the death of Karon Hylton-Brown after Sutton chased him in an unmarked car. Hylton-Brown, riding a scooter, collided with a vehicle in traffic and died days later.

The legislation would also revise the disciplinary provisions passed by the council, shielding certain personal information from being made public if officers are only accused of wrongdoing. (Those with substantiated allegations of misconduct will still have that information public.)

Hampton said this, too, seems unrelated to reducing crime and in opposition to what the Police Reform Commission recommended in its 200-plus page report to local lawmakers.

“It’s in direct conflict with the recommendations that we came up with at the commission.”

Drug-Free Zones

The proposal would revive “drug-free zones,” a concept the city voted out in 2014. (Mayor Bowser, a councilmember at the time, supported that legislation.)

The MPD chief would be able to declare an area a drug-free zone for up to five days, preventing individuals from gathering in the area “for the purpose of participating in the use, purchase or sale of illegal drugs.” These areas would be determined based on MPD surveillance and data, in addition to concerns from community members. Smith would not specify what areas specifically are being considered.

Smith defended the practice as constitutional, although police would theoretically have the ability to apprehend anyone hanging out in the temporarily restricted zone that they suspect is involved with illegal drugs. Per the language of the bill, something as vague as track marks on an individual in the area could be justification for an officer to apprehend them. At the press conference, Appiah also defended the legality of the provision. She cited a “really interesting primer” from the Sentencing Project on the concept of drug-free zones in her remarks.

In response, the Sentencing Project’s acting executive director Kara Gotsch wrote a letter to the mayor, clarifying that the organization does not support the policy.

“To be clear, The Sentencing Project has not endorsed the approach you are promoting, and I ask that you and your administration refrain from suggesting otherwise,” reads the letter, obtained by DCist/WAMU. “Instead, we urge you to move beyond the failed tactics of the drug war and pursue public health responses to drug use.”

Drug-free zones were an advent of the War on Drugs often instituted across the U.S. near schools, playgrounds, or public housing projects. Research has shown they did not typically reduce drug use or sales but did increase rates of incarceration in Black communities.

Organized Retail Theft 

As headlines about retail theft dominate some local (and even national) news outlets, the mayor’s proposal would create a new penalty for “organized retail theft” – a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison if the value of the stolen property was $1,000 or more, or if the property is damaged in the process.

It would also create a new crime for directly organizing retail theft punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

The proposal also aims to revive the law banning mask-wearing to commit a crime, which was ended in 2020 as a part of the council’s reforms.

“This isn’t about getting people an extra charge for wearing a mask, it’s about preventing crime,” Appiah said. “It’s about giving our officers the opportunity to prevent crime before it happens.”

What’s next?

The mayor seemed confident in her ability to get the bill on the council’s agenda for the next legislative session, taking place in early November.

“We’re not going for seven – we’re going for 13,” Bowser said of the council votes.

Meanwhile, the council has two other public safety bills on its agenda; one from Brooke Pinto, that would increase penalties for violent crimes, heighten law enforcement surveillance, and recruit more employees for the city’s troubled 911 center, among an array of other provisions. At-large councilmember Robert White has also introduced his own bill aimed at crime reduction, focusing on uniting the city’s scattered violence reduction programs, improving firearm data tracking, and addressing staffing issues at the city’s still-unaccredited crime lab.

This story has been updated with a letter from the Sentencing Project.